


Seconds Ticking

by biichan



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (Big Finish Audio)
Genre: Gen, Jossed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-03-07
Updated: 2008-03-07
Packaged: 2017-10-05 01:26:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/36258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/biichan/pseuds/biichan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Of course they had a back-up plan. No one said that it was sensible.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Seconds Ticking

She did not expect to see the Doctor again before she died.

He wore another face. There was a woman with him called Donna. She had the bearing of a warrior, though she was not such. The Doctor said she was something called a "temp." Leela did not know what that was.

Her captors, the Z'nai, were gone. Dead, she would have thought, but there were no bodies. Donna said the Doctor made them disappear as if they had never been.

"There were weapons on Gallifrey that could do that," said Leela. "When I first knew him, the Doctor would have not wanted to use them."

"He didn't seem all that hesitant to me," said Donna.

"He is a killer now," said Leela. "I do not know if I like it."

* * *

Martha sat on the bed, fobwatch in one hand and mobile phone in the other. She'd found it while unpacking the boxes for their new home, nestled between her husband's shirts.

_"Do you ever have dreams?"_

_"Doesn't everyone?"_

_"Do you ever have ones that you think might be real?"_

_"Sometimes."_

_"What are they like?"_

_"Strange. I'm an art collector. And a cardinal. I call myself a cardinal, anyhow, but I wear the wrong colored robes. There is a girl. My little brother loves her. I have a little brother in my dreams. We have different mothers. I despair of him. He never made very good marks. He ran away from home and made a lot of trouble for me to fix. The girl... she was president? I was proud of her. There is a woman in my head. Beautiful. Awful. I can't go home. I need to save our home."_

_"Oh."_

_"Martha... is everything all right?"_

Her husband was a good man. Professor Yana had been a good man too.

"I wish I dared ask you," Martha said to the mobile phone. "But I can't." She shut the phone before she could press SEND.

_ "There is a woman in my head. Beautiful. Awful. I can't go home. I need to save our home."_

* * *

"You found K9!" Leela said joyfully. "Tell me, where did you find him?"

"Scrap heap," said the Doctor. "Waiting to be recycled. Luckily, the Z'nai hadn't got to his part of the heap before we came."

"But this is wonderful," said Leela. "Not only have I missed him greatly—for all that he is the other K9 and not my own—but he knows the numbers that will tell us where we must go to find those that have been put inside the watches."

The Doctor's face turned pale. "What?"

* * *

"I wasn't going to tell you until you were older," said Jackie. "I suppose twenty-one's old enough. I'm...not really your mum. Not when it comes to blood."

Rose bit her lip. "But you always say I'm so much like Pete..."

"I didn't say he wasn't your Dad," said Jackie quietly. She dug in her pocket. "Here. This is yours. Good luck that I had it in my pocket when we were stuck here, wasn't it?"

The watch was heavy in Rose's hand. It felt almost warm.

* * *

_"This is a stupid plan," said Leela. "I do not like this plan."_

_"Too bad," said Romana. "I haven't got another one."_

_"You are going to mate with that man. So that in a year you can change your face into that of a baby's which you shall claim to be his." Leela's tone was damning._

_"Yes," said Romana coolly. "And you're going to take my infant self to him, Leela, so do try to pay attention."_

_Leela turned to Braxiatel. "I don't understand," she complained. "It does not seem fair that Narvin can keep his face, while you and Romana must change yours."_

_"It's less dangerous for him," said Braxiatel. "For us as well. We need to make sure that the information in Romana's mind and my own isn't recovered by the enemy. Protective camouflage will allow this."_

_Leela frowned. "And yet I still do not understand how your machine—this Arch of the Chameleon—must work."_

_Braxiatel sighed. "To explain that would take quite some time. Perhaps months."_

_"We have months," said Leela stubbornly. "This stupid plan requires them."_

_"We'll get into the specifics of how exactly it works later," said Romana. "Suffice to say, the Arch can make us human for a time. Due to the limitations of the human form, whatever cannot be translated from one form to another is left over in that watch. Because of this, I won't be able to remember who I truly am. Neither of us will."_

_"You truly will be children, then," said Leela._

_"Yes," said Braxiatel. "And quite human, with all that encompasses. Well-meaning, but naïve. Quite brave, of course."_

__And a bit dim_, Romana thought but didn't say. Leela was, after all, descended from Earth humans. Romana wondered what sort of human Braxiatel would make. She didn't think much of what the Arch had done to Narvin, but of course it relied on one's perception of the alien species to influence what it made out of a person._

_Leela sighed. "K9, what do you think of the plan?"_

_"I think it is foolish, Mistress," chirped the little tin dog. It lowered its head. "I do not know what else we can do."_

* * *

"That's funny," said Jackie. "It never wanted to open for me."

"I think," Romana said slowly, "it was waiting for the right time."


End file.
